There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not the U.S. is approaching a recession. As an investor, this question is of utmost importance. It is precisely at these times when fortunes can be made and lost. There’s no shortage of pundits with strong opinions in both the affirmative and negative camps armed with plausible narratives and supporting data sets. How to decide which side to take? Applying some proven forecasting methods to historical data can help bring clarity to this question.

Forecasting is tricky business. It’s really hard to do well consistently, especially in investing.

Fortunately for us, Philip Tetlock has made a study of forecasting. In the book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (aka Superforecasting) he and coauthor Dan Gardner share their findings of a multi-year study aimed to discover the best forecasters, uncover their methods, and to determine if forecasting skills could improve. There are many great lessons conveyed in the book. We can thus apply them to our problem at hand: the question of whether or not the U.S. will enter a recession….CLICK for complete article

“Either Epstein will be found dead claiming suicide because he had remorse, or he will make a deal and then probably will be found dead of some heart attack afterward. I would be shocked if there would EVER be a public trial allowed.” ~ Martin Armstrong July 25th, 2019

When the news broke on Saturday that Jeffrey Epstein had committed suicide despite being on a suicide watch in the Manhattan Correctional Centre we couldn’t help but think about a blog post Marty put up last month. CLICK HERE for his complete answer to the question “Will Epstein every go to trial”. ~Ed

The higher the stock market rises, the more investors worry that the big correction is coming. The fact that the market has risen steadily since 2009 has many investing with fear, or worse, sitting on the sidelines while the uptrend continues. The trauma that was the 2008 financial crisis causes critical mistakes for investors unwilling […]

International trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) are considered the key drivers of global value chains. About 11 percent of economic activity (GDP) in the U.S. is dependent on foreign markets. But when relations sour between countries as they have between two of the world’s largest economies, foreign investments can dry up and put thousands of jobs in jeopardy. That’s why reports that Chinese investments in the U.S. have plunged nearly 90 percent under President Trump’s watch is quite disconcerting. According to data by the Rhodium Group, Chinese FDI in the U.S. has fallen from a peak of $46.5 billion in 2016 to just $5.4 billion last year, sharply reversing a trend of rising investments from the Far East. Much of the blame for the massive decline can be pinned on amped up regulations, a battery of tariffs and growing unease by the U.S. on China’s expanding global influence.

The apathy is not mutual though, with American FDI into China only declining slightly from $14 billion 2017 to $13 billion in 2018. After lagging for years, China managed to overtake the U.S. in two-way FDI for the first time in 2015– the balance has now shifted back to the U.S….CLICK for complete article

At the end of the day, all of the frenzied whispers in the press about Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing’s sweeping restructuring hardly did it justice. Instead of moving slowly, the bank started herding hundreds of employees into meetings with HR, first in its offices in Asia (Hong Kong, Sydney), then London (which got hit particularly hard) then New York City.

By some accounts, it was the largest mass banker firing since the collapse of Lehman, which left nearly 30,000 employees in New York City jobless. Although the American economy is doing comparatively well relative to Europe, across the world, DB employees might struggle to find work again in their same field.

According to Bloomberg, automation and cuts have left most investment banks much leaner than they were before the crisis, and the contracting hedge fund industry, which once poached employees from DB’s equities business, isn’t much help. Some employees will inevitably find their way to Evercore, Blackstone – boutique investment banks and private equity are two of the industry’s top growth areas – or family offices, which, thanks to the never-ending rally in asset prices (and the return of bitcoin), are also booming.

Oh, and of course, there’s always crypto. Some evidence has surfaced to suggest that many young bankers are already looking to make the leap….CLICK for complete article